Prep Now for Spring Fishing

Put your down time to work

By Dennis Doyle

Even if your gear doesn’t look this bad, cracked rod guides, corroded reel bearings or a rusty hook will cost you fish.

Don’t wait for April to begin tackle or boat preparations because by then it will be too late. This weekend if not today, check on your fishing gear. Examine your rods, inspect your reels, check out your boat equipment.
Which reels need to be re-spooled? Which need maintenance? Turn your reel handles with pressure on the spool. Are your drags smooth? Do they freeze or hesitate before they release? The drag washers may need to be cleaned and repacked with grease.
Check your reel handles. Do they turn smoothly? Are the bushings and bearings clean, or are they corroded and rough? Check the free spool lever. Does the reel spool disengage freely? Does it re-engage promptly? This one is a show-stopper. If you can’t put your reel back in gear, you will be unable to land your fish, even retrieve your line.
If your reels need any kind of maintenance, now is the time to send them off. Currently, you can expect them to be repaired or serviced within one or two weeks. But if you wait until just before opening day, you might not get them back for a month or more. Closely inspect your rod guides. A cracked guide ring may be difficult to see, but it will shred your line the first time a good fish puts some pressure on your tackle. Rod guides that show corrosion in a joint area or have been bent should be replaced. They can and will collapse at the first inopportune moment. Repairs and replacements can be accomplished promptly now as rod craftsmen are still in a slow period.
Look over your hooks, sinkers and lures. Are your bucktails and parachutes still in good condition, or are the hair and skirts twisted and deformed from being put up carelessly? If they are, they won’t track or work properly in the water. Now is the time to correct that. Put them in hot water for a soak, then lay them out on a towel to dry.
Replace any rusted hooks. A rusty hook requires three or four times the force as a new hook to penetrate a fish’s mouth — more if the fish is a big one. File off the rust and sharpen the points on any hooks that can’t be replaced. Wipe them down with WD-40 so they won’t re-rust before the season opens.
Check out all your boat gear. Are your flares and fire extinguishers still operational and with valid dates? Are all of your life preservers still functional, and do you have enough of them? Don’t be that guy on opening day going from store to store trying to find flares, whistles, throwable floatation devices or an extra PFD for a last-minute guest. You can get a Natural Resources Police citation and be ordered off the water if any of these are missing.
Check your paperwork. Do you have your boat registration certificate, and is it current? It’s required when you’re on the water. Now is a good time to get your new fishing license for yourself or for the boat.
Put the license sticker on your bow promptly and be sure to keep the paperwork on-board; that’s also required now by Natural Resources Police officers, though it is not well advertised. Check your hull boat numbers and registration stickers. They can disappear over a nasty winter or may have been stripped off by hard running the previous season. That could mean a ticket on opening day.
Run a power and cell check on your boat battery; batteries like to go dead over winter and can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to replace at 5am opening day. Perform an on-site review of all your boat’s electrical circuits. Are all your navigation lights operating and if they’re not, is it the bulb, the wiring or the switch?
Are your fish finder and GPS fully functional? Does your marine radio still work? Is your bilge pump operating properly? Failure of any of these devices can turn opening day into an experience in frustration or worse.
Get these jobs done now, and you can relax, confident in the knowledge that all you need to do on opening day is wake up on time and have luck in your corner.